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I would have put the good ole mag drill with an annular cutter on it, and been done with it. I have 2 in my shop, they are great tools when used properly. I have cut thousands of holes in 1" plate and never had any issues...

I would have put the good ole mag drill with an annular cutter on it, and been done with it. I have 2 in my shop, they are great tools when used properly. I have cut thousands of holes in 1" plate and never had any issues...

Attachment 31858Attachment 31853 This is the first time I have to go through hardened (may be A/R) material that thick. As the front of the old cutting edge is rounded from wear, will welding in a bit of filler to the bottom of the old edge hold to the hardened steel? I was thinking that it should just pack with dirt and not worry about it?

As a retired Heavy Equipment operator, I'm a little confused about your question regarding the old cutting edge. I'm guessing that you're talking about the bucket edge being worn due to not replacing the cutting edge before it wore past the bucket. From the picture, the bucket has really been worn down and should have been replaced long ago. I don't think there's too much you can do at this point. You can try building up the bucket edge but that's a lot of work. Hopefully, you won't snap the new cutting edge when someone gets into something solid with it, such as concrete. They're not supposed to be sticking out that far and as such, are much more likely to snap upon load.

Anyway, in regards to the holes, the ones I've seen done are done by a torch. With the right torch they can be cut so good that they almost look drilled. I hope some of this was helpful...